The Internet and media enabled portable computing devices have dramatically altered the processes for generating and consuming media content. Presently, users can consume media content virtually anywhere at any time, as long as they have access to a media capable device with an Internet connection. The convenience of being able to view media content via the Internet, essentially on demand, has resulted in explosive growth of Internet media consumption. Internet media traffic is currently approaching a majority of consumer Internet traffic, and the rate of demand is projected to continue increasing.
The explosive growth of Internet media traffic is at least partially attributable to the inherent portability of digital media content, and simplicity of accurate reproduction. However, these characteristics also make protecting the rights of digital media content owners challenging. Millions of people around the world have the capability to consume and produce digital media content, and popular online services can receive tens (if not hundreds) of hours worth of newly uploaded content every minute.
A technique that been commonly employed by online services to protect media content is requiring consumers to employ a content protection or digital rights management solution that controls consumption and/or usage of media content. However, conventional content protection and/or digital rights management solutions can be improved. For example, media content controlled by conventional content protection and/or digital rights management solutions is still susceptible to being copied by an analog technique (e.g., via an analog to digital recording device).